Hilma Caravau

Automatic Creation of TV Content to Integrate in Seniors Viewing Activities

The challenges and opportunities that arise with the increase of older populations are drawing the attention of several sectors of society, as is the case of the technological segment. The development of technical solutions to improve seniors’ quality of life and promote their autonomous living is commonly found in the roadmap of research teams and companies. Reports and news show that the elderly feel several limitations and problems concerning the activities of finding and accessing credible information through technical solutions. Statistics and studies also reveal that older people have high levels of daily television consumption, which makes TV one of the ways with a lot of potential to inform seniors. Taking in consideration these two factors, it seems that information broadcast to elderly through television, without requiring a search activity, may be an idea with a lot of potential. In line with this, this paper reveals the process to define audio-visual content for seniors as well as a set of guidelines for the development of iTV platforms for this target group. Seniors’ preferences concerning the sound and text elements were gathered in two different moments in two different Senior Universities in Portugal.

Towards a Proposal of an Application to Promote Volunteering through Television to Help Older Adults.

This article seeks to present a proposal of a project that aims to develop a television (TV) application that allows older adults to ask for support from a group of volunteers in specific tasks, using voice to carry out some tasks. To this end, a review was made to identify projects that have been addressing TV and voice interfaces in the context of systems and services directed to older adults. The review also focused on initiatives that use digital technologies to support volunteering targeting older adults. In addition, a questionnaire was applied to a group of people considered to be among the groups of stakeholders of the abovementioned application. The results of the review show that, even with several improvements in the last years in voice interaction area, it is not yet generally considered in TV applications and there seem to be few applications that are focused on foster volunteering targeting older adults. Furthermore, the data obtained by the questionnaire reveal the existence of a set of factors that do not allow a generalized acceptance of the use of a TV application to ask for help from a group of volunteers, despite being recognized by diverse groups of stakeholders that this type of applications is important.

Seniors' Info-Inclusion Through Interactive Television: Results of a Field Trial.

Television platforms are becoming more relevant due to multiple factors, namely the interactive features that can be provided. Interactivity can effectively support citizens’ problems and needs and open a range of opportunities in several society’s sectors. One of these opportunities is related to seniors’ level of information. In this framework, to improve Portuguese seniors’ info-inclusion in subjects such as social and public services, the +TV4E project aims to develop an Interactive Television (iTV) platform to broadcast personalized content regarding these topics. This paper presents the process and the results of the +TV4E prototype evaluation considering usability and functionality. The platform was made available to a sample of seniors that used it for five weeks in their homes. After this period, the research team applied an evaluation scale and a questionnaire survey to collect data. Despite the high level of usability depicted in results, it was also possible to identify a set of features that should be improved in the final iTV platform.

Proposal of an iTV Splash Screen Targeted to Seniors.

Population around the world is getting older every year so it is progressively getting more important to find ways to use modern technology to promote active ageing and the general well-being of seniors. In this paper, contextualized in the +TV4E project, a splash screen for an interactive television application is proposed, which serves to contextualize the users by providing information regarding weather, time, date and season, as well as contact information for the nearest pharmacy and taxi. This paper describes the splash screen and its components as well as the field tests carried out to validate its utility.

Delivering Information of General Interest Through Interactive Television: A Taxonomy of Assistance Services for the Portuguese Elderly

In the context of an ageing population, providing relevant information to support seniors’ daily activities plays an important role to promote these citizens’ quality of life. This study is part of the +TV4E project, which aims to develop an Interactive Television (iTV) platform to transmit personalized information regarding Services of General Interest (SGI) to senior citizens. In order to better assess seniors’ preferences and expectations this study aims to propose the Assistance Services of General Interest for Elderly (ASGIE) concept and taxonomy. To achieve this, we set out to collect contributions from specialists in welfare promotion and public policies development for the Portuguese elderly to elicit detailed perceptions on the information needs of these population segment. The validity and relevance of contributions gathered along with these specialists were subsequently confirmed in a survey with 23 seniors recruited in the context of the +TV4E project. The ASGIE taxonomy is composed by 7 domains of information: Healthcare and Welfare services, Social services, Financial services, Culture services, Security services, Transport services and Local authority services. Findings from this study are relevant for authorities in charge of designing, implementing and monitoring public policies for seniors, as they present valuable indicators of information needs of these citizens.

A Process to Design a Video Library for Senior Users of iTV

The adoption rate of technologies by older adults is dependent on several factors, such as the identified potential benefits in the users’ perspective. In the scope of +TV4E project, which aims to deliver informative videos regarding public and social services to older people through an interactive television (iTV) platform, this study defines a process to design the video library allowing the access to the previous referred videos. Therefore, this article explores the process carried out to define the best design approach to present the video library. The research was conducted in three phases: (i) video library design; (ii) usability evaluation and (iii) definition of the final layout. Each phase included a specific sample of potential end users and different techniques of data collection were applied. The achieved results for this study revealed that working with older people is a difficult task and researchers need to be flexible, willing to adapt the data collection process to eventual needs that come up during a project’s development.

Application for Older Adults to Ask for Help from Volunteers Through Television: Design and Evaluation of a High Visual-Fidelity Prototype

Designing a television (TV) application for older adults presents specific challenges, especially when the issue is an application that aims to support volunteer activities which will benefit older adults. This article describes the design process and evaluation of an interactive high visual-fidelity prototype of an application for a TV set-top box, which aims to allow older adults to request, in a simple and quick way, help from a group of volunteers, in specific tasks such as small household maintenance. Concerning the user interface design, a set of specific guidelines were considered and applied in the development of a high visual-fidelity prototype. The result of this process was later evaluated in heuristic evaluation sessions and user testing. The former were supported by a list of heuristics, drawn from other lists used in recent research and adapted to the context of the study. The latter were conducted with potential users that tried to accomplish some tasks on the prototype. In a context in which several studies show that television is a highly privileged platform to provide information to the older adults population due to its high degree of use in this group, this project may present important contributions to better understand some of the challenges that are associated with the design and early evaluation of TV applications whose target audience is older adults and some good practices that should be followed to achieve a product that is easy and enjoyable for this public to use.

Pervasive Health and Regulatory Frameworks

Pervasive health deals with the application of pervasive computing for health and wellness management and its developments should be subject of regulatory oversight. The paper presents a general overview of pervasive health concepts and applications, and aims to verify the level of conformity of current developments with existing regulatory frameworks.